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It’s been a while since we did an update. Be sure to watch the editor and runtimes Trello boards to stay up to date. Subscribe to a board or individual tasks to get notified of any progress.

The generic C++ runtime is now complete, as well as the SFML and cocos2d-x runtimes which use it. Soon we will also have the cocos2d-iphone and Torque2D runtimes complete, then we’ll move on to Unity and C#. After an initial stall due to fixing up some issues with the Spine editor, runtime development is picking up speed!

In other news, we have some new videos available to help you be more productive when using Spine. Also be sure to see the advanced examples from the coding workshop which demonstrate mixing, procedural animation, Box2D integration, and more. More videos and proper documentation is in the works.

Starting in version 1.2.0, Spine has all new code for dealing with OpenGL, which is used by the editor for all rendering. This affects a ton of stuff: window creation, OpenGL initialization, drawing, input handling, etc. Stability on the Mac should be much improved. Note this only affects Macs — Windows and Linux are unchanged.

We’d be very grateful if you can try it out and report any issues you find in the forum post.

The new backend took quite a lot longer than we planned. Special thanks to Mario Zechner for wrapping GLFW so it can be used from java. You can see from the commit logs it has been a wholelot ofwork. There may be a few kinks over the next couple days, but we are happy to get this behind us and to start working in earnest on the runtimes.

We’ve been working hard on a number of things that will increase our productivity over the coming weeks. First, Spine now has installers for Windows and Mac and will automatically download updates, so you always have the latest. This allows us to quickly fix bugs and push out new versions to everyone. Also, Spine bundles it’s own JVM now so we are no longer at the mercy of whatever JVM users have installed, resulting in fewer setup issues.

We know that everyone is anxious to hear when their favorite runtime or feature will be done. We’d love to give super accurate estimates, but in software development that isn’t usually a great idea for many reasons. Instead, we’ll give you as much insight as possible into what we are working on currently and what we will work on next. We’ll also show the entire backlog of work that is planned.

I personally dread project management tools. I’ll take indented plain text files any day! However, something more is needed to make Spine’s development more transparent, so we’ve begun using Trello. You can watch our progress on our Trello pages for the editor and the runtimes. You can vote and comment on tasks, and we will keep the votes in mind when choosing what to work on next. Kickstarter goals are marked green, major tasks are yellow, GitHub issues are red.

We also needed a better way to accept issues and suggestions from our users. We’ve decided to use the GitHub issue tracker. You can report bugs or suggest features on our GitHub pages for the editor and the runtimes. New issues automatically appear in the Backlog on our Trello pages, so you can see how they are prioritized.

There are still a few issues with OpenGL on the Mac. We will be solving these soon with a whole new OpenGL backend (via GLFW) for all operating systems. Beyond that, we are working hard on the Kickstarter goals and will keep everyone updated with our progress!

In other news, the Artist Workshop was a success and we will be sending out the video soon. Next Saturday (March 9th) is the Coding Workshop at 12:00pm PST. Invites will be sent out via email in a few days. Don’t miss it!